Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre, courtesy Bright Green
From strangers, the truth: Jenny Webb on asylum
‘This man’s words convey the way in which othering is built into the asylum system.’
Some Navajo people prefer to be known as the Diné, which means ‘the people’. But if ‘we’ are ‘the people’ then maybe others do not qualify as people. And maybe this was once used as a justification for marauding, killing, and enslaving people.
This process of defining ourselves as fully human, and others as less so, is sometimes described as ‘othering’. It involves the attribution of negative characteristics to whole groups of people. Othering and stereotyping fuel conflict, violence, abuse and cruelty.
We see othering today in relation to refugees. Many of us have watched with horror the conditions on the border of Belarus and Poland. But othering takes place in this country too. At a recent Regional Meeting on asylum, one refugee, David, described his treatment, indefinitely detained for the ‘crime’ of seeking safety in this country: ‘Rooms without windows. No fresh air. Two people share a room. No human respect. No privacy. You may be eating while the other person uses the toilet. You don’t even feel like eating anything. It makes you feel sick. Waiting time may be one month or eleven years. Not knowing robs you of all agency. You don’t know what will happen when day breaks. It makes life unbearable. You can’t get paper or pen. If a book is brought for me it is put through security checks and kept for months. Or a crossword book. They say it’s a weapon. There was a man who couldn’t walk. His feet were burnt when his home was burned by the Taliban. The Centre refused him crutches. An officer said: “We have our eyes on you… we see a lot of guys coming out of your room and we know what you are up to.” I said I am translating documents for them, explaining things. I was punished. Moved from one detention centre to another. I was told it was a breach of detention rules for me to help other detainees.’
This man’s words convey the way in which othering is built into the asylum system. Every year about 20,000 people are detained in ten detention centres, surrounded by razor wire, with thick metal doors and guards who jangle their keys. Terror suspects can only be held for fourteen days, but the UK detains refugees indefinitely without trial. For many, this results in retraumatisation, and lasting damage to their mental health.
Jesus told us that we should love our neighbour. But who is our neighbour? Advices & queries tells us: ‘Respect the wide diversity among us in our lives and relationships. Refrain from making prejudiced judgments about the life journeys of others… Remember that each one of us is unique, precious, a child of God.’
Perhaps we should strive not only to follow this advice, but also to understand and counter the processes which underlie the sort of treatment described by David. In his words: ‘How we treat strangers defines who we are.’
Jenny would like to thank Anna Pincus, the director of the Gatwick Detainee Welfare Group, and David, a trustee of that charity and a former detainee.
